1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dialing circuit apparatus for phone. More particularly, the present invention relates to a community dialing circuit apparatus for Plain Old Phone Service phone (POTS phone) and Internet Protocol phone (IP phone).
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to the development of the Information Technologies (IT), a lot of IT product manufacturers integrate their IT product with electric appliances to make a convenient and user friendly household product. An electric appliance equipped with an IT application is commonly known as Information Appliance (IA). An IA usually means a traditional electric appliance such as a television (TV), a refrigerator, a baker, a microwave oven, or a coffee maker equipped with a software or a hardware technology to have a new application, or it may also mean an IT product designed for a household use. The IA product can further be incorporated with computer or network to have a purpose for being controlled with the computer or accessing to the network, therefore a broader function can be obtained. An IA communication media includes an Internet, a cable of a cable TV, a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), a satellite, or a microwave.
The DSL is a continuous digital line for transferring a high bandwidth information to a user or a company by using a modem with a common copper made phone wire to connect a computer system with the digital line. An IP phone is an example of IA using DSL. The IP phone is a creative development of a network communication. A received analog voice signal is transferred into a digital signal and compressed into a packet for transporting. After the packet is received by the end user, the packet is decompressed and transferred into a voice signal, thus the voice communication is achieved. By using an IP phone, a user can save a lot of money for a long distance call. Currently, the IP phone can be classified into three types according to the communication methods, these types include: computer-to-computer, computer-to-phone, and phone-to-phone. In the previous two types, the end user needs to have a multimedia hardware, such as a multimedia personal computer (PC). The multimedia PC can be connected to Internet via an Internet Service Provider (ISP), and by using an IP phone software, a voice communication can be achieved between two end users.
Moreover, an IP phone having a video, such as a video phone can also be used to make a phone call through Internet. By using an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology, the videophone can be used to transport the information between the ISP and the end user. The ADSL provides different bandwidth for downstream (from the ISP to the user) and upstream (from the end user to the ISP) transmission. For example, a typical bandwidth for downstream is 1.5 mega bit per second (Mbps) to 9 Mbps, and for upstream is 16 kilo bit per second (Kbps) to 640 Kbps. Except for a higher transmission speed for video stream and voice stream can be achieved, the videophone also provides a friendly dialing panel the same as a traditional phone. Without loading a complexity to the end user, the videophone has become a major product of the IP phone.
As mentioned above, since the Internet phone has a lot of advantages, however, the ISP and the IP phone depend heavily on the city power supply. When the city power fails, the power of the ISP and the IP phone is off and can not be used. As a contrast, the POTS phone is communicated by a wire between the phones and does not depend on the city power. Therefore, when the city power fails, the POTS phone can also be used very well, and this is an excellent feature that an IP phone does not have.
Accordingly, a POTS phone and an IP phone are still not yet integrated into a single device, so that the end user can not use a device to connect to the POTS network and the IP network simultaneously. Therefore, it is important to have a community dialing circuit apparatus for POTS phone and IP phone.